"Do I need to be liked? Absolutely not. I like to be liked. I enjoy being liked. I have to be liked. But it's not like this compulsive need to be liked. Like my need to be praised." Michael Scott from The Office (but actually swiped from Gabe VanD's Facebook profile).
My supervisor was in Argentina for the past week, which was great. I learned a lot from her and have more ideas and understanding and increased vision for what to do the next several months. I was also really just encouraged by her presence, her passion, and 20+ years doing similar work, primarily in Haiti, then the Dominican Republic and now also in Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Brazil among others.
I'm off to Baradero - Cordoba - Baradero this afternoon. Baradero is 100 miles from here (3 hours for me) and it's on the way to Cordoba. I'm starting to go to Baradero weekly to accompany the team there. In Cordoba I'll be attending and speaking at a missions conference in addition to leading a workshop with some young people on planning "seed projects."
So, I don't have much time so I'll just write some random thoughts:
- Spring in Buenos Aires means that no longer to I get to enjoy seeing the little neckerchiefs worn by the very Latino men here. Very sad.
- Speaking of Latino men, the other day I was called "doll" and "beautiful." The first time was when I walking through the downtown central train station at 6:00 am and a man with a cigarette between his lips and his arms full with a mate gourd and thermos said (in Spanish), "Hey, doll." Can you picture it? The second was at the fruit and vegetable stand I go to. You can't pick the produce by yourself most places here, and one of the guys there always says, "'Bye, beautiful," after he helps me. :-)
- Argentina's a late night kind of place. I knew this, but it was still surprising to see how empty (almost completely) the train was going downtown at 5:15 am on a weekday. Once I got downtown and was outside the train station there were plenty of people. It was still dark, but some of the vendors had fires going in cans or coals in grocery carts which they used to heat up the bread products they sell. And everyone was carrying a mate gourd and thermos. Horacio tells me that poorer people drink a lot of mate here. They add sugar to it which, along with the caffeine, takes away some hunger pains.
- And, speaking of night time, the picture above is from the finale of a tango show I went to with my visitors on Saturday night. It started after 10 pm and finished about 1:20 am. Shortly after 2 am we were on a main street in my neighborhood where there were people walking, waiting for buses, and hanging out.
